When the Scene Disappears: Envisioning What’s Next

On my morning walk in Gaia, I stopped for a long time beside an artist standing at his easel. The light was doing that familiar Porto thing—soft on the azulejos, bright on the Douro, the Dom Luís I Bridge cutting a steel arc across the sky. He dipped his brush and, with unbelievable steadiness, pulled the city onto the canvas.

It struck me: his genius wasn’t only in his hand. It was also in his vantage point. He had a breathtaking subject right in front of him. The scene itself was doing some of the work.

For years, that’s what leading a company can feel like. The scene is laid out—the product roadmap, the Monday huddles, the next big client, the annual retreat. You still need courage and craft, but the subject is there. Quarter by quarter, year by year, you paint what’s in front of you.

And then one day, the scene disappears.

You step away from the business—or begin to imagine it—and the canvas goes white. No skyline. No familiar angles. No “next goal” humming like a neon sign. Just space.

That’s when even the most visionary founder can feel paralyzed. We retreat to what we know. We set up another easel in the same spot, paint the same view, call it “advising” or “investing,” and wonder why the colors don’t move us like they used to.

This is a story about learning to paint again when the subject is nowhere in sight.

The honest part we don’t say out loud

When the business identity loosens its grip, other questions show up: Who am I without this? Do I still have a vision in me? Am I just a version of my old title searching for a new room to stand in?

No spreadsheet fixes that. What helps is more human:

• Letting yourself admit the blankness.

• Naming the fear of “ruining” a clean canvas.

• Resisting the comfort of repainting yesterday.

I had to face all three.

What helped me begin again

1) Borrowing other people’s canvases.

I started listening to stories that were way outside my lane. A founder who became a high school mentor. A couple who built an organic farm where they hosted events and intimate gatherings. A CEO who took a year to write letters to his adult children. These weren’t templates; they were permission slips. Exposure to “unlikely” futures loosened my thinking and reminded me the world is wide.

2) Giving myself more than one canvas.

I stopped trying to land “the vision” on the first pass. Instead, I played out a few versions on scrap paper: one that kept me in familiar waters, one that stretched me, one that felt borderline ridiculous but secretly thrilling. The point was to practice, not perform—to prove I had more than one way to be me.

3) Letting it stay private—for a while.

Early visions are seedlings. They need light and water, not opinion. I held mine close until I could feel the roots take. When I eventually shared, I started with a safe person who could hold curiosity without judgment.

4) Choosing my own style.

I stopped trying to mimic anyone else’s brushwork. What do I actually find beautiful? What am I drawn to create even if no one ever claps? That became my compass.

Field notes for founders standing at the easel

These are practices I now offer to the founders I work with—simple, human, effective when the scene is gone:

• Begin with values, not goals. Before you paint what you’ll do, decide what matters now. Family presence, creative work, service, health, freedom, place. Values create the frame; goals fill it.

• Design the edges of the canvas. Name what won’t make it into this next chapter—obligations that drain you, roles that belong to an earlier season, patterns that cost too much. Pruning creates room for life.

• Work in layers. Painters block in shapes, then color, then detail. Do the same. Draft a version of what “a good week” looks like. Live it for two weeks. Adjust. Repeat. Vision is iterative, not final.

• Micro-vision one day. If a five-year picture feels like fog, zoom in. Describe one ordinary day in your ideal next chapter—when you wake, what you work on, who you see, where your body moves, how the evening ends. Make it textured and real.

• Talk with your future self. Sit across from you, five years from now. Ask: What are you grateful I started? What did I stop doing that made everything lighter? What small thing turned out to be huge?

• Use more than words. Cut images for a small collage. Sketch a room you want to spend time in. Record a voice memo when inspiration hits on a walk. A different medium can unlock a different truth.

• Invite a trusted witness. When you’re ready, speak one corner of your vision aloud to someone who can hold it with care. Saying it makes it real; the right witness makes it safe.

• Name the energy you want to live in. Not just what you’ll do, but how you’ll feel while doing it: unhurried, useful, curious, at peace, alive. When energy leads, wise choices follow.

• Leave space for surprise. Not every square inch needs paint today. Often the most important parts of a picture emerge last.

A gentle reframe

A blank canvas is not emptiness. It’s freedom.

The business you built is a finished landscape—beautiful, hard-won, deeply yours. Honor it. Then set the easel somewhere new. Let your hand hover. Wait for the color you actually want.

You don’t have to paint perfectly. You only have to begin.

The studio where you don’t have to go it alone

This is why we built The Founder’s Transition Lab—a high-trust studio for owners designing what comes after the business. It’s a place to borrow inspiration without comparison, to experiment without performance, to translate values into shape and color—one layer at a time.

Inside the Lab you’ll find structure without pressure, peers who “get it,” and coaching that helps you shift from gripping the old picture to growing the new one. We don’t hand you a template. We help you find your style—and the courage to keep painting.

If there’s even a whisper of transition in your future, start now. This work takes time, and you deserve to do it right.

Your next brushstrokes:

• Try a Trial Run with 6–8 owners who are asking the same questions.

• Take the Founders Transition Readiness Assessment to locate where you are on the map.

• Schedule a conversation if you want a safe place to talk through the first sketches.

Don’t be one of the many who look back and wish they’d prepared personally, not just financially. The scene in front of you may be gone. But the canvas is here. And you, friend—you still have a painter’s hand.